Here is the revelation that is shaping my life today – my personal revelation of love is the corrective discipline of God.
Hebrews 12:7,10 TPT
[7] Fully embrace God’s correction as part of your training, for he is doing what any loving father does for his children. For who has ever heard of a child who never had to be corrected? [10] Our parents corrected us for the short time of our childhood as it seemed good to them. But God corrects us throughout our lives for our own good, giving us an invitation to share his holiness.
Observation
We don’t like discipline. But how does love discipline? Most discipline we experience is coercive, it’s manipulative. It’s – do that and you get this, it’s carrot and stick discipline, it’s Santa discipline, it’s sent to my room discipline, or worse it is violent and painful discipline. But there is no coercion, no manipulation, no transaction with love.
Loves discipline is invitational as love is invitational. She never operates outside of self, and self-revelation. Love exposes self and the personal encounter is the motivation to accept the invitation to mirror love. God is never disciplining us to be something other than ourselves. This is what holiness is – becoming the made in the image of God divine being that I am. It’s not discipline to his ways it’s an invitation into the best version of self. We all live our revelation and the revelation of love you have received is the only revelation you can live, this is why love always invites intimacy with self as the only means of discipline. So to “Fully embrace God’s correction,” is to fully embrace God himself. His discipline is always for our own good, for the best life for me is living in the made in his image revelation I have received.
Heavenly discipline is not to stop it or else, it’s to be embraced and then reflect. Beauty not manipulation is the motivation behind heavenly correction. God does not punish sin, for sin has its own inherent punishment, correction is not an equation in heaven, it’s not weight it up – do that and you get this, do this and you get that. It’s not an intellectual assent to a decision of “better”, it’s a heart response to love’s embrace that captures me beyond intellectual submission, but has me in awe and wonder and delight that reaches beyond where manipulation could ever take me. It takes me into reflection, to self-sacrifice and a life that reflects heaven, not earth. Heaven will not come by any other means than the embrace of love and the reflection of my revelation of love’s embrace.
Application
Fully embracing love’s embrace for her embrace is the only discipline I need, so stay embraced in the beauty, awe and wonder of love. God is not vindictive, he is not a law keeper judge, he is not coercive or manipulative, he is a lover and love alone is his correction.
Response
Thank you for your correction, I love the way love moves me into the truest version of me, the image bearer of you me. I love that I do not live in fear of being ‘caught’ and disciplined, but rather I live caught by love, being disciplined by her embrace every day.
Meditation
Meditate – love disciplines with her presence.
Consider:
How much of your picture of God involves manipulation, coercion and fear of punishment?
Do you know the correction of love?
JOURNEY DEEPER